Tag Archives: Chris Christie

In the old days, the presidential nomination was often unsettled until balloting began at the convention. Under those rules, the winning candidate typically announced his preferred running mate on the morning of the last day of the convention. Since 1984, with each party having a presumptive nominee heading into convention, the norm has been to name the preferred running mate before the convention, most often in the week before the convention. Based on that history, Trump should name his VP pick sometime next week.

Right now, Trump’s pick may come down to who is willing to accept the nomination that is a viable pick. Every time the press speculates on a candidate who might actually improve Trump’s chances, that candidate withdraws their name from consideration (most recently Bob Corker and Jodi Ernst).

While the parties did not have much choice about including Iowa and New Hampshire in the window of early states, the theory behind the early states is that all four are small enough and different enough to help narrow the field. While winning is nice, the real goals of the campaigns are: 1) to seem viable enough that supporters (both voters and donors) don’t go looking elsewhere; and 2) to meet targets for delegates. Candidates who are unable to show signs of life quickly find that their campaigns have no life.

We are coming up on the November debates — the Republicans on Fox Business Channel, the Democrats on CBS. The sheer size of the Republican field (and the impossibility of being fair to all of the candidates) continues to drive everybody mad. Arbitrary criteria lead to candidates being shuffled to the “JV” debate or excluded all together; and the shortness of time leads to candidates being upset about not getting a chance to make their points. On the other hand, with only five candidates originally and three candidates left now, the time issues are not that pressing on the Democratic side.

For the upcoming Republican debates, three candidates have been excluded from the JV debates (Lindsay Graham, George Pataki and Jim Gilmore). Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum will take part in the JV debate. The main event will feature Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Rand Paul.

The number of Republicans running creates a potential paradox in the normal money primary. At this point in the campaign, trailing candidates routinely find themselves in a catch-22 — they need more funds to become competitive but they need to become competitive to get more funds. However, putting aside Carson and Trump (as most of the money folks seem to think that both will collapse), several of the candidates can point to a poll showing them within the margin of error of third place in at least one early state. However, it is highly unlikely that 15 candidates will make it to Iowa. I would not be surprised if Senator Graham decides that with Rand Paul not being a serious contender that he no longer is needed to assure that the Republican field takes an aggressive stand on foreign policy. If Gilmore and Pataki were actually running expensive campaigns, I would not be surprised for them to call it a day soon. Since they aren’t, they might just stick around. Santorum, Huckabee, and Jindal are all competing for the same slot — currently occupied by Ben Carson. At some point, the lack of funds will force one or all of them to drop out. The November JV debate may be the last chance for one of these three to become the alternative to Carson.Continue Reading...